John Goodenough and Alan Arkin,and so it goes.
"As the sun rose on Madison, Wis., Thursday morning, the air quality was measured at 242 — a 'very unhealthy' purple alert rating — due to smoke from Canada's wildfires… Madison wasn't alone: from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Columbus, Ohio, a swath of the Midwest was marked by a dense mass of purple dots on the U.S. AirNow fire and smoke map, signaling the need for people to limit their time outside."
"A study published Monday found that female bottlenose dolphins change their tone when addressing their calves. Researchers recorded the signature whistles of 19 mother dolphins in Florida, when accompanied by their young offspring and when swimming alone or with other adults."
"A pronounced dip in the geoid under the Indian Ocean—called the Indian Ocean geoid low (IOGL)—is the planet’s most prominent gravitational anomaly… As a result of the low pull of gravity there, combined with the higher gravitational pull from the surrounding areas, the sea level of the Indian Ocean over the hole is a whopping 106 meters lower than the global average, says the new study’s senior author Attreyee Ghosh, a geophysicist at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore." There's a hole in the bottom of the sea.
"A giant detector buried deep within the Antarctic ice at the South Pole has obtained the first evidence of eerie particles called neutrinos coming from the innards of our own home galaxy, the Milky Way… The discovery is a step towards scientists being better able to use particles to study hidden or elusive phenomena in the universe, rather than having to rely on light seen by telescopes."
"The oppressive heat that descended on Texas last week will continue this week, with nearly every weather service office in the state issuing heat advisories or warnings for the days ahead."
A warmer globe and increased CO2 is better, they say. "Five cases of malaria have been confirmed in Florida and Texas, the first time the potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease has been locally acquired in the United States in 20 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday."
"A warming world is transforming some major snowfalls into extreme rain over mountains instead, somehow worsening both dangerous flooding like the type that devastated Pakistan last year as well as long-term water shortages, a new study found."
"'They're trying to find a cool space, and if they can put as much of their core body on to a cool space, then the heat is going to transfer from their bodies to the other surface. So in the case of squirrels, you'll often see them maybe on a shady sidewalk, or a park path, or in the grass, just splayed out.'" Splootting.
"A federal judge in South Dakota has sentenced a Montana man to three years in prison for trafficking eagle feathers, wings and tails… Harvey Hugs, 59, of Hardin, Montana, was sentenced Monday in Rapid City. He was found guilty in February of three counts of violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Rapid City Journal reported."
"A report published Monday morning by the nonprofit First Street Foundation warns that new infrastructure projects built today using Atlas 14 data 'are instantly decades out of date.'… As a result, the projects are 'unable to adequately protect against current and future flood risks from heavy precipitation events,' the report says."
"In January, I traveled to the Upside Foods manufacturing plant in Emeryville, California. There, chef Jess Weaver sauteed a cultivated chicken breast in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers and green onions… The aroma was enticing, just like any filet cooked in butter would be. And the taste was light and delicate with a tender texture, just like any chicken breast I’d make at home – if, that is, I were a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America." Here's the thing about stuff like this, if we're going to make things artificially, why the hell don't we emulate the good things that used to be? Like flooring, why emulate 4" boards instead of 10" and 12" floorboards. Decking emulates 6" planks, why not 10" planks, like we had. So why make lab grown chicken taste like modern chicken and not real chicken, flavorful, moist, meat that takes years to develop instead of emulating the chicken we kill at 6 weeks which is bland?
"Intermittent fasting has taken off in popularity in recent years as an alternative to more traditional weight loss advice, including counting calories, which can be cumbersome and hard to sustain for some people… Intermittent fasting can take different forms. One approach — called time-restricted eating — limits when people eat to a specific window of time, often around six to eight hours."
"I spoke with the genetic counselor from my OB’s office. There’s no good news. It just gets worse. Every day he continues to develop, he puts myself and his twin at greater risk for complications. She can’t say much because of the new Texas laws. She said that when she was in New York, they would do a single twin reduction (ie, an abortion of one twin), but she couldn’t give me any more information."
"When people are looking for abortion services, they often turn to Google, searching a phrase like 'abortion clinic near me' or 'planned parenthood.'… Yet the ads they'll see at the top of the Google search results are often not abortion providers at all, but instead misleading ads for anti-abortion 'crisis pregnancy centers' — facilities that use various tactics to dissuade or delay pregnant people from getting an abortion." The combined result of enshittification and the wrongful decision linking money to free speech.
"In many places, that leaves a teacher who wants to have a baby with few options: take limited unpaid leave, save up sick leave, hope for colleagues to share their sick leave, pay for their own substitute teacher, or try to time the birth for summer break."
"Transgender Kansans who legally changed the gender on their drivers’ licenses or birth certificates will soon see them changed back by the state, Attorney General Kris Kobach said… Kobach said Monday that an expansive new Kansas law defining male and female according to a person’s biological characteristics requires state agencies to maintain records in line with a person’s sex assigned at birth." What a bunch of bullshit.
"When the dismissal was announced recently of most of the people who have guided Turner Classic Movies brilliantly for years — the programmers, the producers of special material, even the executives who plan the TCM film festivals and party cruises — many people in Hollywood reacted like there'd been a death in the family. Because, to people who really love movies, that's what the news felt like." Fuck. Enshittification before they become a widely available streaming service.
"Waste electrical and electronic equipment (better known by its unfortunate acronym, Weee) is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. Electronic waste amounted to 53.6m tonnes in 2019, a figure growing at about 2% a year. Consider: in 2021, tech companies sold an estimated 1.43bn smartphones, 341m computers, 210m TVs and 548m pairs of headphones. And that’s ignoring the millions of consoles, sex toys, electric scooters and other battery-powered devices we buy every year. Most are not disposed of but live on in perpetuity, tucked away, forgotten, like the old iPhones and headphones in my kitchen drawer, kept 'just in case'. As the head of MusicMagpie, a UK secondhand retail and refurbishing service, tells me: 'Our biggest competitor is apathy.'" Including corporations sipping the middle-man (consumer) and just destroying products newly made.
"Across Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century."
"In his first address since a group of rebellious mercenaries marched toward Moscow over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country had united in opposition to the uprising… In a brief five-minute speech, Putin seemed to reaffirm a deal he agreed on to end the conflict, which resulted in Wagner Group commander Yevgeny Prigozhin being exiled to Belarus."
"Mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led an armed rebellion against the Russian military — and walked free. Others who merely voiced criticism against the Kremlin weren’t so lucky." Yeah if I were Yevgeny Prigozhin, I'd stay away from windows, accepting tea, or touching a door knob.
"The Australian government has evacuated the last refugee it was holding on Nauru, ushering in the end of its 11-year controversial off-shore detention processing policy on that Pacific island nation."
"Hungary’s parliament postponed ratifying Sweden’s NATO accession bid on Wednesday to its autumn legislative session." Hungary, always wanting to be the turd in the punch bowl.
"Police released video footage on Wednesday of an officer killing a neo-Nazi gunman, quickly ending a mass shooting that left eight people dead and seven others wounded at a Dallas-area shopping mall."
"An argument over seating at an Albuquerque movie theater escalated into a shooting that left a man dead and sent frightened filmgoers scrambling to flee, police said Monday." That "polite society" I'm always hearing about.
"The U.S. Supreme Court shot down a controversial legal theory that could have changed the way elections are run across the country but left the door open to more limited challenges that could increase its role in deciding voting disputes during the 2024 presidential election."
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case challenging a skirts-only dress code for girls at a North Carolina charter school, letting stand a lower court ruling that the school's dress code violated federal law."
"The Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday that effectively ends affirmative action in higher education raises questions about the future of employer-run initiatives and programs that consider race — which exist extensively across the United States."
"Although Chinese-owned land is a tiny fraction of all foreign-owned land in the U.S., its purchases have raised fears that the Chinese government could have control, through the Chinese corporations, over U.S. assets or gain access to U.S.-based information. Indeed, during the past four decades, Chinese companies and investors have bought up land in the U.S. as well as purchased major food companies like Smithfield Foods, the United States' largest pork processor. Corporations own the majority of that land. Now legislation in Congress would restrict Chinese ownership of U.S. land." Just because it's small doesn't mean we can't all freak the fuck out now. Beat the Christmas rush as it were. Wait until their hear about what Saudi Arabia has been doing.
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 long ideological lines that the First Amendment bars Colorado from 'forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.'" There's a hellalotta problems with this case, including that Ms Smith has no standing. "Though Smith hasn’t yet expanded to her services to include wedding websites with her company, 303 Creative, she said she’s dreamed about doing so since she was a child." The person she states asked her to make a wedding site is not gay, is in a heterosexual marriage, and didn't submit the request until after she filed her lawsuit. And, again, a "graphic designer" is not an "artist."
"Here's the upshot: A quarter-century after California banned race-based admissions at public universities, school officials say they haven't been able to meet their diversity and equity goals — despite more than a half billion dollars spent on outreach and alternative admissions standards." Um, NPR, that's not an "upshot." That's just a "result."
"Driven by the demands of hard-right members, Republicans in the House are threatening impeachment against Biden and his top Cabinet officials, creating a backbeat of chatter about “high crimes and misdemeanors” that is driving legislative action, spurring committee investigations, raking in fundraising money and complicating the plans of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his leadership team." It's all about the money.
"Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro goes on trial… facing charges that he spread false information about Brazil's election system just months before he lost his reelection bid last October. He's also facing allegations that he abused his power to spread the misstatements."
"On Tuesday, former president Trump was arraigned following his federal indictment. On this week’s On the Media, debunking claims that the former president is being targeted for his politics. Plus, one reporter’s cross-country examination of fascism in the United States." On the media podcast coverage of the events and politics around the case along with both the political mood of the nation and the stories we tell ourselves.
"The country is headed toward the anniversary date as it remains riven politically, its citizens divided over how to view the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and whether President Joe Biden was legitimately elected. Even decisions on where to shop or what beer to drink have been caught up in political fighting."
How do you say "waaa" but you're rich? "Former President Donald Trump is trying to turn the tables on the advice columnist who won a $5 million jury award against him in a sexual abuse lawsuit, saying in a countersuit that she owes him money and a retraction for continuing to insist she was raped even after a jury declined to agree."
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